Provocative and encyclopedic, the book covers subjects from psychic detection, reincarnation and alternative history to vampires, doppelgangers and Odic forces.

    But the CIA's spies had few qualms when it came to cultivating terrorist organisations and interfering in the internal politics of Cold War Italy. Puppetmasters reveals how US intelligence services exploited the P2 masonic lodge to prop up friendly Christian Democrat-dominated governments and counter the growing political influence of the Italian Communist Party. It was a ruthless strategy involving coup plots, right wing terrorist bombings and the manipulation of the Red Brigades. And it gave Italy one of the bloodiest and most protracted periods of terrorist violence ever seen in a modern, industrialised society.

    and its allies have put the terrorism perpetrated by their official enemies-often small scale terrorism compared to that sponsored by the West. The contributors to this study place such retail terrorism in the context of U.S. supported wholesale violence and offer an analysis fo the ideological goals that have been served by mainstream discussions of terrorism. This timely and controversial study radically questions current ideas and definitions of terrorism.